MMS – Multimedia Messaging Service Ville Partanen Markus Kujala

Agenda What is MMS Figures MMS message example SMIL and supported media types Specifications Network elements MMS service in detail Other issues Personal view Questions?

What is MMS (1/2) In short: ”A method to send voice, pictures, text and video from phone/ computer to phone/computer” Virtually all new phones have the capabity to send MMS messages. (For example all Nokia phones starting from the new 3000 model series) In order to send MMS messages the user has to configure GPRS (or other data channel) settings to his/her phone

What is MMS (2/2) The recipient address can be MSISDN, a phone number or an address The messages are always relayed through a MMSC (Multimedia Messaging Service Center) Current MMS services: –Pictures, video, sound and text from computer/phone to computer/phone –ISP’s have personal accounts for users People can for example store pictures on an ISP’s server and then send them as an MMS using a computer Future MMS services –Every possible way of combining text, sound and pictures

Figures In Britain 15% of sold phones have a camera by the end of this year (Wireless World Forum) All major ISPs in Finland have MMS relaying equipment. One MMS costs about 0.6 e Worldwide in 2002 over 580 billion users sent 430 billion SMS messages. Under 1 % of users used MMS (Telecom Trends International) Wireless World Forum* predicts that MMS is worth 5.8 billion by 2006 in the Key 16 market**. This is only 20% of the amout that analysts predict. ISPs do not give out information regarding the number of sent MMS messages. In short: estimations are still high and it is uncertain will MMS hit the market big time like SMS. * Forum where a number of wireless experts write ** (Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States)

SMIL and supported media types SMIL = Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language –HTML-like language with timing capabilites –SMIL defines when and where different MMS message elements (i.e text, audio) are presented –First phones offer only limited SMIL –Altenatives for example XHTML, but it does not support timing –Conclusion: SMIL must be supported in the future. To help this there are already documents concerning SMIL+XHTML Supported media types: –Picture: JPEG, GIF, WBMP –Text: UTF-8/16 –Speech: AMR (Adaptive Multi-Rate) –Personal information Management: vCalendar and vCard

MMS example (1/4)

MMS example (2/4) Header –X-Mms-Message-Type: m-retrieve-conf (required) –X-Mms-Transaction-Id: text-string –X-Mms-Version: 1.0 –Message-Id: text-string (usually format) –Date: HTTP-date-format –From: or +InternationalPhoneNumber/TYPE=PLMN (Address- present-token is assumed) –To: or +InternationalPhoneNumber/TYPE=PLMN (use multiple headers for multiple recipients) –Cc: (same format as To) –Bcc: (same format as To) –Subject: text-string –X-Mms-Message-Class: Personal, Advertisement, Informational or Auto (default is Personal) –X-Mms-Priority: Low, Normal or High (default is Normal) –X-Mms-Delivery-Report: Yes or No (default is No) –X-Mms-Read-Reply: Yes or No (default is No) –Content-type: MIME-Type (default is application/vnd.wap.multipart.related, override default with caution!)X-NowMMS-Content-Location: filename;content- type (optional, use multiple headers for multiple files)

MMS example (3/4) SMIL part <!DOCTYPE SMIL PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SMIL 2.0 Basic//EN" "

MMS example (4/4) : smil part : parallel -- happens in parallel. The par-tag can have dur=” XXms” as an attribute : only one can be selected, a button for example (not shown here) : elements played in a sequence (not shown here)

Specifications 3GPP has published two MMS related specifications –TS Service Aspects System requirements at a general level –TS Functional Description Detailed version which descibes various architectural elements that are a part of MMS In addition to these 3GPP has five WAP MMS specifications that describe –Architecture overview –Client Transaction –Encapsulation Protocol –Two Wireless Session Protocol Spesifications

Network elements (1/2)

Network elements (2/2) Server/Gateway –MMS to Legacy support –Server where to store the message before user fetches it Subscriber database –Helps MMSC to decide what content to deliver Content server –If a user’s mobile phone does not support sent media, content server converts it Voic –Voice can be encapsulated to MMS messages Foreign MMSC –Must be used when MMS is sent to other carrier’s network These are just the basic elements, the future will show us many more

MMS service in detail 1.Originator addresses a message 2.Mobile device contains information about MMSC and initializes a connection and sends the message 3.MMSC accepts the message 4.MMSC sends the message to the receiver 5.The receiver gets information about the message from MMSC Receiver can decide when to get the message 6.MMS message in sent to the user 7.Receiver acknowledges the message 8.MMSC informs the originator that the message was delivered

Other important issues Terminolgy –Synchronous: only one message can be handled at a time –Asynchronous: several messages can be handled at a time MMSC center uses standard HTTP headers Security: SSL can be used in MMSC Charging: external applications may send charging information to MMSC

Personal view MMS looks like a killer application, but it will not ”kill” until the price is reasonable MMS will definately belong to the future of mobile communication Streaming and MMS could offer big revenues

Questions? Thank you!

References Course book tmhttp:// tm v70docs/SDL_v7.0/doc_source/DevGuides/ cpp/Messaging/MMS/format.htmlhttp:// v70docs/SDL_v7.0/doc_source/DevGuides/ cpp/Messaging/MMS/format.html main/1,4997,2090,00.html?page_nbr=1